SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Danish Ministry of Education has developed a "digital exam invigilator" to be used by students in the equivalent of high schools ("gymnasiale uddannelser"). The purpose is to be able to detect cheating during written exams. The program:
- captures all keystrokes (keylogger)
- captures a screenshot every minute and whenever you switch tasks
- a list of all open webpages
- network configuration
- which programs are running
- whether it's is running in a VM
- contents of the clipboard
and sends this to a central server during the exam. The data is kept for 4 months.
The initiative is getting a lot of criticism.
- In 2017 there was 229 suspicions of cheating out of more than 200.000 students, so this initiative may be out of proportions.
- The program is only available for Windows and MacOS. No support for Linux or ChromeOS.
- It may be possible for a 3rd party to do a MITM-attack and take over the students' PCs.
- If a student is unable or unwilling to install the program he can perform the exam under "extended surveillance" (good old-fashioned humans watching) at the school's discretion. Some schools deny students this option and instead just fail them.
- The program will likely collect private information.
The schools do not provide computers for students because they cannot afford it. So its BYOD. On some schools (eg. some vocational schools) Linux is quite common. Some schools have trouble affording the extra human invigilators.
So soylentils: what would you do given the constraints? What do other countries do? Ignore the risk of cheating? Spend money on human invigilators?
All sources are in Danish as this news has not hit the international scene (yet). Sorry.
Danish Ministry of Education page on the program: https://www.stil.dk/uvm-dk/gymnasiale-uddannelser/proever-og-eksamen/netproever/den-digitale-proevevagt
Short analysis by security expert Peter Kruse: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/den-digitale-proevevagt-overvaagnings-kritiske-elever-faar-ministeriet-til-rette
A Reddit thread on the subject: https://www.reddit.com/r/Denmark/comments/avovqx/staten_har_nu_krav_om_at_vi_installerer_et/
A discussion on version2 (an EE and CS site): https://www.version2.dk/artikel/digitale-proevevagt-totalovervaagning-elevers-computere-midlertidigt-trukket-tilbage-1087609
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 06 2019, @07:55AM (2 children)
Allow them to use internet and any and all sources they can find, you know like real life. Just limit the time to do the exam. This way clueless people who go surfing will surely lose to people who know the things asked.
I definitely wouldn't install a proprietary keylogger on my computer, even if I ran Windoze or macos.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday March 06 2019, @11:54AM (1 child)
Yeah, that's great: they send the problems to their paid friend in Hungary or wherever, get the answers back, and voila: an unqualified nitwit scores a top grade.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 06 2019, @02:57PM
Sound like what the Ministry did when they got someone to make the program.